Body Rise is one of the key body dimensions used by tailors for panty and trouser design. For adult incontinent articles, the product fit relative to the wearer's navel and back are influenced by the wearers Body Rise, the Product Length and the Bulk in the Crotch, as illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B. Product designs which utilize knowledge of the Body Rise over the range of consumers they are intended to fit, will inherently provide a better, more comfortable and more conforming fit. Today's marketed adult incontinence articles rely on a combination of waist, hip, and weight, neglecting the Body Rise. It is important for fit and comfort to design products wherein the length is not excessive, nor too short. Waist fit that is too low or too high can have a negative impact on performance, comfort, sagging and discretion. Knowing the targeted waist range, the targeted hip range and the targeted weight range of a given population, then determining the appropriate Body Rise range of that population may ensure proper design of the Product Length to cover the desired consumer range.
The appropriate Body Rise or “Target Body Rise” can be determined by knowing the Target BMI, as there is a relationship between BMI and Body Rise as illustrated in FIG. 4. The Target BMI can be determined by knowing the Target Waist, Target Hip, and Target Weight (or any combination of these) as there is a relationship between each of these measures and BMI. These are illustrated in FIGS. 5-8.
Additionally, designing the Product Length to be closer to the Target Body Rise becomes increasingly important as advances in technology occur leading to for example, absorbent cores that become increasingly thinner, narrower, and more flexible. Thinner, narrower and more flexible cores may result in reduced Bulk in the Crotch. Simply stated the Bulk in the Crotch associated with the absorbent core when on the body, adds to the Body Rise and impacts the product length. The greater the Bulk in the Crotch the longer the product length needs to be to fit the intended Body Rise and vice versa, as the Bulk in the Crotch is reduced, the Product Length needs to be shortened in order to maintain the same fit relative to the navel and back of the consumer, as illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B.
Adult incontinence (“AI”) absorbent articles of the present disclosure may be used to absorb and contain liquid and other discharges from the human body to prevent the body and clothing from becoming soiled. For adults who suffer from urinary incontinence, urine voiding consists of two general types: stress urinary incontinence (“SUI”) and urge urinary incontinence (“UUI”). SUI is caused by high pressure on the bladder induced by coughing, sneezing, laughing, bending, etc., and can result in a high flow rate though at a smaller urine volume that is associated with UUI. UUI can result in a full bladder release, though at a lower flow rate than that associated with SUI.
Adult Incontinence articles come in a variety of designs, each typically available in multiple sizes, including 2, 3 and 4 size arrays. The size of articles of the prior art typically affects, for example, the size of the waist opening, the size of the openings around the thighs, and the length or “pitch” of the article. Many of these prior art articles are designed to fit ranges up to 100 pounds. The prior art articles are typically sized and sold by waist circumference dimension. The various sizes can have a range in waist circumference of as much as 12 inches and in some cases up to 16 inches. If a consumer selects an adult incontinence article of the prior art which is size appropriate based on the waist circumference dimension of the wearer given the large ranges associated with the various sizes, the thigh openings or pitch of the article, for instance, may be too large for proper fit on the wearer, potentially leading to slipping, sliding, sagging, drooping, or a loss of gasketing effects that are designed to inhibit leakage. Alternatively, depending on where the wearer is within the large size range, the thigh opening or pitch of the article may be too small for proper fit, potentially leading to wearer discomfort, skin marking of the wearer's skin or improper application or positioning of the article on the wearer.
Desirably, an adult absorbent article should be designed and sized to maintain contact with and conform as closely as possible to a wearer's body. Such a body-conforming design may increase the effectiveness of the adult absorbent article by reducing the possibility that urine, or the like, may spread or travel along the wearer's body and leak out of rather than be absorbed into the adult absorbent article. However, current adult absorbent articles on the market do not adequately address body shape or product shape and therefore do not fit a broad range of users adequately or provide the desired level of close fit. Typically AI packages of adult absorbent articles are labeled with a recommended wearer waist circumference range that the packaged article is intended to fit. As a result, the waist circumference is often the sole criteria used to identify the size of an AI article. The waist size does not in itself adequately describe the body shape of the individual and therefore does not help define the hip or thigh circumference nor the pitch that may be needed to provide the proper fit, comfort, coverage and gasketing of the article. This is the case even though other characteristics and anthropometric attributes of potential wearers (for example, age, height, weight, thigh circumference, and Body Rise) may vary widely within the recommended waist circumference range, and may result in an ill-fitting article even though a wearer's waist circumference falls within that range. There is a need for adult absorbent articles that conform well to various wearers' body shapes and sizes. While there is a wide range of body shapes and sizes among women, available products do not reflect this wide range; rather, absorbent articles available today within a given product array tend to be scaled versions of each other, and do not even follow the natural trend of body shape and dimensional changes across the range of consumers, i.e. smaller to larger women as well as women of varying shape.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is on the rise globally for both men and women. In the U.S. alone, more than ⅓ of adult females are now considered obese (BMI>30). This has changed significantly over the past 30 years; in 1980 only about 16% of U.S. adult females were obese. Larger women exhibit different ratios of body anthropometrics than smaller women, i.e., all body dimensions do not simply scale-up as women get larger. In addition, women across the range of BMI may also have very different body shapes. There is a lack of recognition and understanding of this issue by current adult absorbent article manufacturers and as such consumers' needs are not being adequately met. Therefore, there is a need to develop adult absorbent articles for a wide variety of body shapes and sizes in order to provide an improved level of fit and contact between the body and the adult absorbent article to reduce the occurrence leakage and improve the overall fit, comfort, coverage and discretion of the article. There is a clear need for adult absorbent articles which are designed for variety of wearers based on their BMI and body shape. There is also a need to communicate to wearers the benefits of such customized adult absorbent articles in an easy-to-understand manner (e.g., some women may not understand what BMI is or know their BMI number), which is not off-putting (e.g., without stigmatizing or embarrassing women based on their BMI).
These are all objects of the present disclosure; embodiments of the present disclosure may combine various objects mentioned. A particular embodiment may, but need not, embody every object as described.